


That's It

by TaraRhyme



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alcohol, Bittersweet Ending, Boys Kissing, Death, Falling In Love, Imagination, M/M, Master of Death Harry Potter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-04
Updated: 2020-09-04
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:07:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26282404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TaraRhyme/pseuds/TaraRhyme
Summary: Sometimes, it really is too late. But that never stops the foolhardy of heart.
Relationships: Harry Potter/Tom Riddle | Voldemort
Comments: 8
Kudos: 18





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Heads up, this is a mashup of some scenes of a fic I thought I was going to flesh out, but decided to take the story in a different direction! Enjoy some ambiguous Tom and Harry. The three chapters are in order, and follow the storyline as broadly as possible without giving away the bits I'm still keeping. This is like... the alternate ending to where my drafts were going.

The rain was warm and Harry found himself laughing, face turned up into the bright night sky. It looked like London was keeping the very sky alive with its lights.

"Oh,“ he shouted. Somehow even that was magical. "What then?“

"Nothing,“ he yelled back. "You’re going too fast!“

His face threatened to split from smiling, his grip loose on the brown paper bag. The rain was making its tracks down his face like a mockery of tears, but if Harry were to cry now it would be from happiness. "I can't keep up! I can't walk!" And it was true, he was a drunken fool.

That lamppost was perfectly placed he thought dazedly, as he watched long legs make every step, lit up. Harry didn’t feel like the world was pressing in on him, and he also thought that this maybe was his favorite city in the whole world.

"No,“ a breathless voice said from right above him. Long legs had returned to his stumbling ones. "You haven’t seen anything. You’ll learn of so much better than this old town. Toyko, New York...“ Tom trailed off as Harry looked back up to the sky. Harry was rather drunk. Harry didn't even know he had said that out loud.

Tom stepped in front of him, and Harry was struck again by how jealous he was. Everything Tom did was like art. Like you had to look. Like you wanted to.

"I’m trying to see the stars," Harry mumbled. Tom nodded knowingly in Harry’s peripheral.

"And the rain might just make your mission impossible.“

Long, strong legs were pressed against his front he noticed, and his head was mysteriously empty of thoughts. He desperately looked back to the sky and got nothing but rain drops in his eyes. 

It was just rain drops, really, but Tom brushed them from his cheeks with a firm thumb.

Harry’s eyes drooped again against their will, to meet his. He realized he couldn’t make out the color, only dark. 

He didn’t know the color of Tom’s eyes. Shame, that, when he'd never even thought of it.

The eyebrows were furrowed, and Harry reached to straighten them out. It was oddly intimate, Harry thought. He’d never touched someone’s eyebrow before.

Tom’s face was like something out of a film, but up this close he had young frown lines, and a small cut above his right eye. The lamppost felt extremely bright now, and Harry felt the urge to cover his own face in front of such inhuman perfection. 

Those long fingers on large hands were threading in his hair, then around the back of his neck, and guiding his back- Tom was everywhere. More literally than usual. Harry didn’t mind, and he didn’t mind when his mouth bent to catch Harry’s, and how they’re both watery with the rain and tasting of scotch. He dropped the wet brown bag and barely heard the glass shatter, and he doesn't mind at all.

His first thought was, rather unfortunately, of Uncle Vernon and his vehement ranting about the queers. 

His second thought was that, well, this shouldn’t have been surprising at all.

Harry opened his eyes- he wasn’t sure when he closed them- and his heart dropped at the wet eyelashes, dripping curls.

In the rainy night Tom’s hair looked black as Harry’s. Privately, Harry decided to disagree with Tom. He didn’t think he would like any city in the world as much as this one.

Tom laughed lowly into Harry’s parted mouth. Harry had really not meant to say that out loud.

And oh,  
he thought,  
this is what it feels like to live. 

So Harry hesitantly pressed back, and Tom remained steady. The constant he’d always been. London burned on in the rain, and those two boys on Bristol Lane lived on, for some time.


	2. Chapter 2

He was practically foaming at the mouth, grotesque, and Harry was mesmerized.

"Potter, so lovely to see you, aaaand let’s go,“ Draco was grasping at Harry’s arm, Harry was sure, but he barely felt it. His mind said nothing (traitor) and his heart said go, go and come to me. Always a freak! Harry thought miserably of Uncle Vernon. He would like this comeuppance, if he still had breath.

And Tom-

Art as ever, all long limbed and sharp edges, eyes dark. He looked inhuman to everyone, Harry knew, but this was what made his beauty so great. Harry had always seen Tom as more inhuman before he looked like Voldemort. Or, before Harry knew Voldemort was Tom. That Tom was Voldemort. He would remain, to Harry, more formidable as the high-cheeked, damp curls schoolboy.

Harry wondered if Tom knew that, as Draco dragged him towards the treeline.

And Harry would swear for years to come that that day he caught Tom’s eye, that he saw him- that Tom did nothing. That the murderer that was once a murderer schoolboy had waited with indecisive eyes, and Draco made it to the apparation line. Then with the startling pop of an unpracticed apparationer, the teen boys vanished, and the story could continue.

* * *

Harry felt out of his body, as if he was that little boy on the kitchen floor, scrambling to the cupboard. He was on the ground. It was sudden.

The cold stone was no salve for the invisible wounds. Harry wasn’t angry anymore, his heart felt ripped out. An open sore. The sobs that wracked him felt endless, no start or end. The melodramatics were his only balm.

This pain couldn’t ever be worth it, he thought. Dumbledore was wrong, because when there’s good- oh the good- that’s what rips the heart out of you. Every warm moment, every soft press against all you hold dear in the world. It’s knowing better and still holding out hope, it’s not caring for the truth. It’s fake, but the heart of you feels real for once. Snape- _yes Snape_ \- was right, which was becoming an unwelcome theme recently.

"Hope, Potter.“ he said, "That's what really kills a man." Harry clutched his chest as if that would sow it shut. He was unsure if anythng illegible was coming out his mouth but he slowly became aware of the animalistic sounds tearing his throat.

I knew you, he cried out. I knew you, in the street and after the drink!

I knew you, when you left like a father and I loved you as my brother. I knew you’d linger like that very first kiss- I knew you’d haunt all of my what-ifs. Because I knew better! And yet when you are young, they assume you know nothing.

I knew you’d miss me one day, you will- and I’ll hold out for you to come back, and come stand on my front doorstep. I also know you will never come back, not in my lifetime.

And yet when you are young, they assume you know nothing.


	3. Chapter 3

"You should have met me when I was young,“ Tom rasped out. "You would have liked me.“

"You can’t wait for me,“ Harry said, knowing their time was short. Tom was startled by this brevity. He always was when Harry managed to be a step ahead. The man smiled charmingly, but it wasn’t nearly as roguish with half his face melted. "I- I mean it, Tom.“

"Mmm,“ came the noncommital hum. Harry appreciated the uncharacteristic honesty. He supposed death does that to a person.

"I mean it, Tom. You’ve got to let me live,“ Harry said. "I can’t do that- I simply can’t do that when I’m hanging on for a ghost.“

"You’d do that for me?“ whispered Tom slyly, but he coughed up more phlegm-like blood and the moment was lost. Harry said nothing, his heart in his throat. "Well, what am I meant to do then?“ He complained.

"Board a train,“ came his solemn answer. "Go forward, Tom.“ Harry thought he knew Tom was scared, but he looked so remarkably calm.

Tom sighed throatily.

"And let you live.“ He weakly reached for Harry’s cheek, who leaned into it. The dust around them was settling and the light began to filter through onto their soot covered profiles. "Without me? I don’t know if I can survive that.“

He chuckled wryly as Harry choked back a sob.

"I wish I met you before,“ Tom said finally. "and you would save me. Wouldn’t you?“

* * *

Harry went to the station every day, and then the days he spent there grew further and further apart. He made friends at work, he went out. He had dates, he went to his friends’ weddings. He had his own wedding.

He still went to the station. He still thought about him, though not as often as in the beginning. He felt such pain, on many days, but at the end of each day there was nothing to be done differently. He loved his life, that’s true:

but there was a time he loved Tom Riddle infinite times more.

Tom was never at the station. He was gone, just as Harry asked. Harry had waited a grand long week before visiting the inbetween place, and there wasn't a hint of Riddle. Many days Harry cried and pleaded for him to come back, others he shouted obscenities and brought up old arguments into the nothingness.

And that one day came where Harry Potter died in his sleep, peacefully of old age, and went to the station and he himself-

calmly boarded a train.

In another world, Tom Riddle was scowling at a street urchin.

"Who says so?“

"I had!“ The boy grinned back savagely. "Besides, I’ve left you half.“ Tom peered closer to see the gaunt look of the boy. He huffed.

"Fine,“ he said. "Leave it then.“ The urchin did not just leave it to Tom’s consternation. His patience was wearing thin, and his stomach was growling.

"My name’s Harry.“

"Fantastic,“ Tom bit out.

Ill fated lovers indeed, Fate thought.

* * *

"Hello, Tom.“ He swirled around to see the wretched figure of his Transfiguration Professor. He'd aged like an old man, but that was to be expected- what with the stress of teaching school children... and not hunting immortality.

"Dumbledore,“ he said politely. "shocking as ever. What have I done to warrant a visit?“

"Helping you to your ride,“ he said gently. "I see Harry has shared that particular metaphor with you. Trains and whatnot, hm." Tom took a moment to look around. Harry had told him often enough of the station, that resembled a blinding King’s Cross. But for Tom, all he could see was green for ages. The meadow was grassy but not a single strand swayed against the soft blue sky.

Tom supposed there was no wind in death.

When Tom had looked back to his old Professor, there was suddenly a car to the side of him. It was sleek, shiny, one of those proper gentleman cars that Tom had not seen since he was a boy, before the war.

Odd choice, he thought to himself.

"Well then,“ Dumbledore said. Tom strode forward and jerkily went to grasp the handle of the passenger seat. He looked back at the Professor.

"Are you coming?“

"Dear boy, I’m long gone,“ Mr. Dumbledore said merrily. "It’s just you.“ And isn’t that an odd choice, he thought to himself. He chose Dumbledore. He took a deep breath- and then realised he was dead, so what did he need it for.

That same ache he felt with Harry was growing deep in his pit of a stomach. Tom thought he recognized it: that fear, that tension, that stupid curiosity, that breathlessness. It was, quite frankly, terrible.

"See you on the otherside, Professor,“ he said stiffly.

Tom couldn't let go of the car handle.

"Oh no Tom,“ Dumbledore said sadly, hands clasped in front of his chest. "There is no other side. This was it."


End file.
